Box and Google want to work together in order to change the way we work with Cloud

It is always fascinating to be present at the annual BoxWorks which is hosted by the Californian Cloud provider Box. It is just the second time that I am here in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, however, at the first day of the conference, I am even now already feeling like I am witnessing a historic moment for the global economy. Box has not only announced to be developing a new product together with IBM which will be called Box Relay as well as reorientating the Cloud platform in order to become a central place for saving and collaborative working on documents which contain those kinds of information of a company which are top secret. Furthermore, Box has also announced that they will be working together with Google on a project where they want to connect several services.

Yes, you got that right. Google will connect itself with another service. Both companies want to change the way we work with Cloud by using various initiatives and by working together. As a first step, Box, Google Docs and Google Springboard will be connected to enable the usage of all these platforms at once. Box founder and CEO Aaron Levie thinks that connecting both companies‘ Cloud initiatives makes sense to accomplish Box’s mission „of changing the way how people and organisations work“. Diane Greene, Google’s Cloud business vice president, wants to provide users the possibility to flexibly use the products they want.

For now, this will be the end of Google’s strategy of offering all services on their own on their various platforms. And this was why Greene was employed about nine months ago. It was her task to form partnership of such kinds to make sure that Google becomes increasingly interesting, in particular for large companies. This strategy is also pursued by other companies. On last year’s BoxWorks, Levie has already been talking to his CEO colleague Tim Cook from Apple and with John Chambers from Cisco and later on, Ed Catmull, the founder and CEO of Pixar, joined the conversation. Just a couple of years ago, it would have been impossible just to think of such a joint project.

BoxWorks: Diane Greene and Aaron Levie are introducing Google’s cooperation with Box, which will mean a change of strategy for Google.

In various presentations last year, one could find out more about the new partnership between Box and IBM and see, how closely the company is cooperating with Microsoft. Box CIO Paul Chapman (who has been working for VMware und HP before) claimed this to be a logical development and he is explaining this in an interview he did with me (which can soon be found on Netzpiloten.de):

„Nowadays, everything is about speed. And it is boosted by agility, flexibility and the ability to adapt and to focus on those things which distinguish you from others. And for the things which don’t distinguish you from others, you are looking for a partner. Today’s ecosystem offfers the possibility to bring many different services and innovations together due to Cloud-Delivery and thus curates an experience. (…) And the only way you can reach that is by cooperating and by developing an interoptional Ecosystem with services and platforms together, in order to give the best skills their break and to build your IT-services faster and in a more agile way. Just a few years ago, companies tried to do everything on their own, but the new approach is to focus on the things, which distinguish you from others and to find partners for the things which don’t.“